The next surprise was her face. The features were still hers, the deep-set blue eyes, the straight Montagu nose, the mouth which was slightly too generous to be fashionable, yet the woman she saw reflected back at her was virtually a stranger. She looked older than her twenty years. There was a determined tilt to her chin, a wariness in her expression. Her skin was tanned and freckled; her brows were their natural dark-auburn, as were her lashes. Was it the copper of her gown that made her hair look like the colour of burnished autumn leaves and not the gingery-red she had always thought it? A tiny furrow had been etched into her forehead, testament to her sleepless nights and permanently dark mood, no doubt. She tried to smooth it away, but it was obviously a new fixture. This was Margaret au naturel, and she decided that she rather approved of this new incarnation. She essayed a smile. “What do you think?” she asked, turning to Breda and twirling around, making her crinoline bounce and herself laugh.

“You look so different,” the maid said. “Pretty, but not in the usual way. It’s the smile that transforms you, my lady, if you don’t mind my saying so. It’s very good to see.”

“I show too many teeth when I smile, my mama says. ‘A little more demure, Margaret,’ she was forever telling me.”

“Well, far be it for me to contradict a duchess, but I think it’s a lovely smile with just the right amount of teeth,” Breda said. “A real smile, if you know what I mean.”

“I do, actually.” Margaret pulled on her gloves. “Now, fetch your hat, Breda, and I’ll see you downstairs in five minutes. Dublin awaits us.”

THE POWERSCOURT LANDAU SET THEM down on Grafton Street, which Breda informed her was Dublin’s main shopping district. Beneath black awnings glass-fronted shops, displaying gloves, hats, and fine china, sat beneath tall Georgian buildings. Well-dressed shoppers thronged the clean-swept pavements; smart carriages and dray-carts fought for space on the broad cobbled street.

“Don’t you want to make some purchases, my lady?”

“Perhaps later. I see there is a bookshop over there. For now I’d like to stroll, if you don’t mind, and get my bearings a little. Lord Powerscourt has furnished me with an itinerary. He tells me that I must be sure to see the old parliament building and Trinity College, especially the Book of Kells.”

“The Book of Kells, my lady? Isn’t that just some oul book written by a monk?”

“That’s one way to describe a historically important manuscript.” Margaret laughed, seeing Breda’s face. “Don’t worry. I am no more disposed than you are to spend this lovely autumn day poring over a dusty book.”